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I'd like to offer you a first-hand account of how one company
lost me as a customer in the span of about two short hours.

I frequent businesses where I've had great experiences. I also
don't cook. So, when we had a casual party recently, I ordered
via DiningIn Chicago “DIC,” an order delivery service that I had
used previously and loved. However, our experience this time
shows exactly how not to treat your existing customers.

I ordered food through DiningIn Chicago from Portillo's, the same
restaurant that I had used previously with DIC. Portillo’s,
through the DiningIn Chicago site, offer catering or individual
items for order. What's great about the catering setup is that it
allows you to build your own sandwiches to spec and keep them
warm. The items are supposed to arrive in a chafing dish and I
also ordered the full heating kit with racks and heat, like I did
previously.

Our order arrived with a very friendly delivery man, who unpacked
the order for us. However, as we inspected the order, there was
no catering set up. Instead of getting pans of hot dogs,
hamburgers and separate buns and fixings (yes, I can't even
make hot dogs and hamburgers...), we got sets of assembled
hot dogs and hamburgers. This was a problem for three reasons:

There were toppings like peppers, mustard and pickles that
not every attendee, especially the kids, wanted.

It would be hard to keep the items warmed appropriately,
especially for our guests who were arriving late.

I had spent money on the chafing dishes and liquid heat,
which were pretty much useless at this point.

The driver was very nice and said that he had inquired with the
restaurant upon pickup as he thought that it was strange that
there was no discernable use for chafing dishes. He felt
bad about the mix-up and we reviewed the order, where “catering”
was clearly delineated.

Because our order was not filled correctly, the DiningIn Chicago
driver said that he would have DIC bring us new food. I started
to pack up the incorrect items to give him to take back, but he
told us to keep them. I was skeptical, but he said they
couldn’t do anything with them anyways and suggested we give them
to our neighbors.

It was unfortunate to not have our food correctly delivered at
the requested time, but we appreciated that it was getting solved
(or so we thought). While we waited, we packed up some food for
our doorman and our neighbors, as suggested, to not let it go to
waste.

Sometime later, the phone rang and it was a DiningIn Chicago
representative. He asked what the problem was, which was strange
as he should have known it at that point, but I explained that we
had received the wrong item format for the hot dogs and
hamburgers. He asked if those were the only items that we needed
replaced. I explained we were still missing one piece of cake and
also, the rest of the food that had been delivered was now
getting cold. Some could be salvaged, but the French fries
would clearly not be great by the time the new food arrived, so I
suggested that they should consider replacing those as well.

The rep said that he would call the restaurant and get it sorted
out.

Then the DiningIn Chicago rep called back. He informed us that
the restaurant will replace the hot dogs and hamburgers, but
needs the old ones back.

I told him that he could have the ones we still had remaining
back, but on the counsel of the driver, who told us to keep them
and give them to neighbors, we had given some of them away.

The rep then took a very condescending tone with me, basically
insinuating that I was somehow trying to scam the restaurant out
of a few hot dogs and burgers and insisting that it was the
restaurant’s policy to get them back.

I tried to calmly explain that we didn’t order through the
restaurant, we ordered through DIC and we acted on DIC’s
instructions, the entity that had brought us the wrong order.

The DIC rep actually had the nerve to tell me that the driver was
not a representative of DiningIn Chicago and that we shouldn’t
have listened to him, and that if we wanted the correct order, we
would have to pay again.

Long story short, the DIC rep claimed that it was my fault that
they screwed up my order and that I followed their delivery
driver’s instructions.

I was getting aggravated at this point -- I had people at my
house that were waiting to eat and not only was the DIC rep not
being helpful, he was trying to make it my fault and
problem.

After two hours from the original delivery, the first driver
showed up again and apologized profusely for the entire
situation. As he unpacked the new items, the fixings were
separate, but the hot dogs and hamburgers were still wrapped up
in buns, in one dish (still no need for our chafing materials and
no good way to keep them warm) and the additional cake was still
missing, which our driver said we would be credited for. We also
had soggy French fries and cold pasta, as no previous items were
replaced to give us one, cohesive, correct and simultaneous
order.

We gave back the remaining dogs and burgers to the driver, who
was horrified that we were asked to do so, and when we informed
him that the DiningIn Chicago rep said that he, as a driver,
wasn’t really a rep for the company and his word didn’t count, he
enthusiastically refuted that and reassured us that he in fact
was a rep and that his word was meaningful (as is obvious, since
he was wearing their shirt, carrying their bags and delivering
the food).

Mistakes happen and customers can deal with challenges, but the
response is what matters. In this instance, I can only hold DIC
accountable, since they are the ones we directly engaged for
business and to whom I paid the service fee on delivery. Instead
of making things right, they tried to blame us, which is insane
given that we placed the order correctly. We ended up with a
house full of hungry people who had half-cold food and who
witnessed the entire debacle.

Now, not only will we not use the service in the future, none of
my guests will either, nor will anyone we tell, as people tend to
share customer service stories, good and bad.

This company will likely spend a substantial amount of money
trying to find new customers through ads. However, they had
the opportunity to enhance their relationship with existing
customers (and their customer’s guests and friends) through
providing great service. They didn’t and that is a costly
business mistake.

For the record, I contacted DinginIn via its customer support
email and alerted them of my intention to write about this
experience for Entrepreneur.com. Nobody from the company
responded.

Companies spend so much time trying to grow by focusing on
attracting new customers that they often forget the value of
their existing customers. It is much easier to get your existing
customers to buy more from you and to help you find new customers
through their advocacy than it is for you alone to try to garner
a new customer.

Empower your staff to make their No. 1 job taking care of the
customers. That is the best marketing ROI you can generate.